Archaeology research

Researchers

Prof David Griffiths

Dr Jane Harrison

Project overview

Between 2003 and 2015, survey and geophysics were carried out at three locations on the west mainland of Orkney, at Birsay Bay, Marwick (Bay) and the Bay of Skaill. These areas were selected because they are characterised by sandy low-lying landscapes, fronting bays where coastal erosion has been severe. Most sites found previously in these areas had been disturbed or exposed by the sea, most famously the Neolithic site of Skara Brae in 1850. Small-scale ‘rescue’ excavation in the 1970s succeeded in recording a series of rich sites, but these were small in extent and the wider landscape remained an under-researched and untapped resource. As the threat of coastal erosion grows, we can only hope to understand its likely effects in future by researching the whole landscape picture.

A major element of the project was piecing together the evidence for past climate change. The areas covered by this project were covered by varying depths of windblown sand, a factor which has severely affected the environment in the past. Humans have adapted to this by stabilising and managing the landscape for agriculture and settlement, but at times – such as the end of the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in the 14th 15th centuries AD – the effects of the incoming sand have been so severe that settlements and fields have been abandoned and people have moved elsewhere.

This project has now reached final publication. ‘Beside the Ocean, Coastal Landscapes at the Bay of Sksaill, Marwick and Birsay Bay, Orkney, Archaeological Research 2003-18’ (Oxbow, Oxford, 2019).

Articles and reports

• Maritime Societies in the Viking and Medieval Worlds (2015)
• Medieval Archaeology Vol. 55 (2011)
• Settlement under the Sand (Current Archaeology 2011)

Academic and scientific partnerships

• Historic Scotland
• Dr Ingrid Mainland, Orkney College
• Dr Helen Lewis, University College Dublin (Soil Micromorphologist)
• Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University
• Dr Diane Alldritt, Archaeobotanist, Glasgow
• British Academy
• Leverhulme Trust

Researchers

Prof David Griffiths

Dr Olaf Bayer

Dr Jane Harrison

Project overview

East Oxford is a large and diverse area of Oxford City situated across the River Cherwell from the city centre. Investigation of East Oxford has often been overshadowed by the world-famous heritage of the Oxford colleges. However its landscape includes many open spaces and green areas offering excellent opportunities for exploring the archaeology of the area.

Exciting traces are already known of Iron Age, Roman and Viking settlements, a medieval leper hospital still with its original chapel, Civil War siege works dating to the time when Oxford was the Royalist capital, and the area has a rich industrial and modern heritage.

Local history societies, community organisations and many individual volunteers are keen to discover more about the heritage of their neighbourhoods. The Blackbird Leys estate, for example, is built in an area where a major pottery industry flourished in Roman times. Archaeologists and historians have run training workshops to enable volunteers of all ages and backgrounds to get involved in researching their own areas, dig test pits and take part in archaeological excavations. The East Oxford Archaeology Project has been based on professionally-supported training in archaeological and historical techniques including:

• excavation and geophysics
• working with finds, maps and other evidence
• use of specialist computer programmes
• learning aboutlandscape surveying using modern equipment

In 2010-15, the East Oxford Archaeology Project entered its main activity phase, thanks to a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The grant enabled the programme to recruit two project workers, Jane Harrison and Olaf Bayer. The project website expanded to help detail new developments and to provide a lasting record of the discoveries.

The project won Oxford University’s first ever Public Engagement with Research award in the Collaboration category in July 2016. The project was also adopted as an example for the EU Commission’s strategy for citizen science in November 2016.

It was published as an open access monograph in 2020: ‘The Archaeology of East Oxford, Archeox, the development of a community’ (OUDCE, Thames Valley Monograph Series). A free download is available from the Archaeology Data Service.

The project formed the basis of an impact case study submitted by the School of Archaeology and the Social Sciences Division in 2021.

Read the impact evaluation report

East Oxford Archaeology project website

http://www.archeox.net/

Researchers

Dr Jane Harrison

Mr Trevor Rowley

AAARP Trust leaders: Leigh and Gill Mellor

Project overview

To the immediate west of Oxford, the River Thames describes a broad loop to the north. The land within the loop lay in the county of Berkshire until 1974. The attractive villages of Appleton and Eaton sit towards the western edge of that land amidst fields and woods overlooking the Thames from a broad ridge that dominates the western approach into Oxford. Despite its proximity to the historic city, almost nothing is known about the development of this area’s landscape and settlements before the later medieval period.

Clay geology runs through the ridge frustrating some of the standard ways of detecting archaeological sites. Yet there are hints of past significance that tantalise. A medieval manor ringed by a wide moat was a status symbol and – highly unusually – there were three such manors in Appleton just a few hundred metres apart. Two of them survive (Appleton and Tubney), with their moats, and Appleton Manor incorporates a remarkable and rare example of a late Norman hall-house. Stray antiquarian finds and one or two past excavations in the vicinity have revealed the probability of discovering early prehistoric, Iron Age, Roman and early Anglo-Saxon sites.

There are also a considerable number of unexplored deserted medieval villages. AAARP will discover more about the area. Where are the Iron Age farms? Might the nearby Romano-Celtic religious complex at Marcham-Frilford imply significant Roman settlement on the ridge? Does the area play a role in the emergence of the kingdom of Wessex? How and why did the villages develop? Why the abundance of moated manors and deserted medieval villages?

The project also provides an opportunity to explore the best methods for intensive research on less amenable geologies. The local history society, other villagers and local land owners are key players in this research. Using approaches honed in the department’s East Oxford Archaeology Project, volunteers of all ages and backgrounds will be central to the project and provided with professionally-supported training. And volunteers who worked with the East Oxford Project will be joining us again to help – passing on skills gained in East Oxford to the people of west of Oxford.

We will be digging test pits, conducting geophysics, fieldwalking, undertaking topographical and building survey, and documentary research. Early results are already overturning assumptions made about the historic landscapes.

AAARP received funding from a Mick Aston/Council for British Archaeology Award in 2017.